The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-War

by D. Thomas Curtin

One striking instance of this occurred when the Wilhelmstrasse discovered that Washington was in possession of information in the "Arabic incident" which made the official excuses palpably too thin. After the German authorities became convinced that their failure to guarantee that unresisting merchantmen would not be sunk until passengers and crew were removed to a place of safety would cause a break with the United States, Tirpitz asserted that the disadvantages to Germany from America as an enemy would be slight in comparison with the advantages from the relentless submarining which in his opinion would defeat Britain. He therefore advocated that no concessions be made to Washington. Von Bethmann-Hollweg was of the opposite opinion. A deadlock resulted, which was broken when the Kaiser summoned both men to separate and secret conferences. He decided in favour of the Chancellor, whereupon Washington received the famous "Arabic Guarantees." It is highly significant that these were never made known to the German people.

Then followed six months of "frightfulness," broken pledges, notes, crises, semi-crises, and finally the great crisis de luxe in the case of the Sussex. When, a few days after my return to England from Germany, I used the expression "Sussex Crisis" to a leading Englishman, he expressed surprise at the term "crisis." "We did not get the impression in England that the affair was a real crisis," he said.

My experiences in Germany during the last week in April and the first four days in May, 1916, left no doubt in my mind that I was living through a crisis, the outcome of which would have a tremendous effect upon the subsequent course of the war. Previous dealings with Washington had convinced the German Government as well as the German people that the American Government would stand for anything. Thus the extraordinary explanation of the German Foreign Office that the Sussex was not torpedoed by a German submarine, since the only U-boat commander who had fired a torpedo in the channel waters on the fateful day had made a sketch of the vessel which he had attacked, which, according to the sketch, was not the Sussex.

The German people were so supremely satisfied with this explanation that they displayed chagrin which quickly changed to ugliness when the German Press was allowed to print enough of the news from Washington to prepare the public mind for something sharp from across the Atlantic. I have seen Berlin joyful, serious, and sad during the war; I have seen it on many memorable days; but never have I seen it exactly as on Saturday, April 22nd, the day when the Sussex Ultimatum was made known through the Press. The news was headlined in the afternoon editions. The eager crowds snapped them up, stood still in their tracks, and then one and all expressed their amazement to anybody near them, "President Wilson began by shaking his fist at Germany, and ended by shaking his finger," was the way one of the President's political opponents summarised his Notes. That was the opinion in Germany. And now he had "pulled a gun." The Germans could not understand it. When they encountered any of the few Americans left in their country they either foamed in rage at them, or, in blank amazement, asked them what it was all about.

It was extremely interesting to the student of the war to see that the people really did not understand what it was all about. Theodor Wolff, the brilliant editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, with great daring for a German editor, raised this point in the edition in which the Ultimatum was printed. He asserted that the German people did not understand the case because they purposely had been left in the dark by the Government. He said, among other things, that his countrymen were in no position to understand the feeling of resentment in the United States, because the meagre reports permitted in the German Press never described such details as the death agonies of women and children struggling helplessly in the water.

This article in the Tageblatt was the striking exception to the rest of the Press comment throughout Germany, for the German Government made one of its typical moves at this point. "To climb down or not to climb down," was a question which would take several days to decide. Public opinion was already sufficiently enraged against America to give the Government united support in case of a break, but it must be made more enraged and consequently more united. Thus on Easter Sunday the full current of hate was turned on in the German Press. President Wilson was violently attacked for working in the interest of the Allies, whom he wished to save. Germany would not bow to this injustice, she would fight, and America, too, would be made to feel what it means to go to war with Germany. The German Press did its part to inflame a united German sentiment, and the Foreign Office, which believes in playing the game both ways when it is of advantage to do so, with characteristic thoroughness did not permit the American correspondents to cable to their papers the virulent lies, such as those in the Tagliche Rundschau, about the affair in general and President Wilson in particular. These papers were furthermore not allowed to leave Germany.

On the evening preceding the publication of the Ultimatum, Maximilian Harden's most famous number of the Zukunft appeared with the title "If I Were Wilson." On Saturday morning it was advertised on yellow and black posters throughout Berlin, and was quickly bought by a feverish public to whom anything pertaining to German-American relations was of the sharpest interest. The remarkable article was directly at variance with all the manufactured ideas which had been storming in German brains for more than a year. The British sea policy was represented in a light quite different from the officially incubated German conception of it. President Wilson was correctly portrayed as strictly neutral in all his official acts. This staggered Harden's readers quite as much as his attacks on the brutal submarine policy of his country.

A careless censor had allowed "If I Were Wilson," to appear. But a vigilant Government, ever watchful of the food for the minds of its children, hastened with the usual police methods to correct the mistake. The Zukunft was beschlagnahmt, which means that the police hastily gathered up all unsold copies at the publishers, kiosks, and wherever else they were to be found. If a policeman saw one in a man's pocket he took it away.

Why did the Government do everything in its power to suppress this article? The Government fully understood that there was nothing in it that was not true, nothing in it of a revolutionary character. It divulged no military or naval secrets. It was a simple statement of political truths. But the German great Idea Factory in the Wilhelmstrasse does not judge printed matter from its truth or falsity. The forming of the public mind in the mould in which it will best serve the interests of the State is the sole consideration. While the Directors of Thought were deliberating on the relative disadvantages of a curtailment of submarine activity and America as an enemy, and the order of the day was to instill hatred, no matter how, they decided that it would be inadvisable for the people to read the true statements of Harden.

One American correspondent began to cable five thousand words of "If I Were Wilson" to his paper. The Censor stopped him after he had sent thirteen hundred. A rival correspondent, when he glanced at the article immediately after it had appeared, decided that it was more suitable for mail matter than cable matter, put it in an envelope, and actually scored a scoop over all opponents.